Coaching practices for The Good Life Book
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Good Life Book, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- On paper I’ve hit the goal
- Every conversation in my life is about logistics or careers or complaints, and I’m starving for somewhere I can actually talk through how to live
- On paper my life looks fine and I can’t point to anything that’s wrong, but I have this nagging sense it isn’t actually going well
- I keep telling myself I’ll make real time for the people I love once I hit the next work milestone, and that milestone never stops moving
- I’m living by a whole set of rules about how life should go, and it’s started to dawn on me that I never actually chose most of them
Practices that may help
- The Good Life: Lessons from the Harvard Study
The Harvard Study of Adult Development — the longest longitudinal study of adult life, directed today by Robert Waldinger — found that the strongest predictor of long-term health and happiness is the quality of our relationships, not wealth or fame. It is real, decades-long research, but it is observational: it shows relationships and wellbeing move together, which is strong but not proof of pure cause. - Designing Your Life, Made Practical
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ Stanford method treats your life like a design problem: you don’t "find" the one right answer, you prototype your way toward several good ones. The core moves — reframing stuck beliefs, drafting multiple Odyssey Plans, and running small prototypes — are practitioner tools adapted from design thinking, well-reasoned but not formally outcome-tested as a package. - Lifestyle Design, Made Practical
Lifestyle design is the deliberate act of deciding what you want your daily life to look and feel like — then building backward from that vision to structure work, time, and location accordingly. Tim Ferriss popularized the framework; many of its tactics (mini-retirements, geographic arbitrage, outsourcing) are anecdotal or practitioner-reported rather than studied, but the underlying principle of deliberate design over passive default is well supported by goal-setting and autonomy research. - Set lifestyle anti-goals to protect daily experience, not just outcomes
The quality of your daily experience matters — define the daily conditions you refuse to accept, not just the outcomes.
Anti-Goals: Defining Success by What You Refuse to Accept - Creating a philosophical community of practice
Form or join a small group that meets regularly to examine how to live well — not just to succeed.
Epicurean Philosophy: Practical Happiness - Periodic eudaimonia audit: are you actually flourishing?
Periodically evaluate your life against the conditions Aristotle thought were necessary for genuine flourishing — not just your feelings about it.
Aristotelian Eudaimonia: Flourishing Through Virtue - Investing in people over status
Direct discretionary time and energy toward relationships, not just career and acquisition.
The Good Life: Lessons from the Harvard Study - Conduct a regular examined-life audit
Periodically ask: which of the beliefs I am living by have I actually examined, and which am I just inheriting?
The Socratic Method, Made Practical - Cultivating simple pleasures deliberately
Build a reliable repertoire of simple, accessible, non-escalating pleasures and protect time for them.
Epicurean Philosophy: Practical Happiness - Define your Rich Life before designing your spending
Decide what genuinely brings you joy or meaning before allocating a single dollar.
Conscious Spending Plan, Made Practical
Related concerns
- What Makes A Good Life
The Harvard Study of Adult Development — the longest longitudinal study of adult life, directed today by Robert Waldinger — found that the strongest predictor of long-term health and happiness is the quality of our relationships, not wealth or fame. It is real, decades-long research, but it is observational: it shows relationships and wellbeing move together, which is strong but not proof of pure cause.
- How To Live Well Discussion
Form or join a small group that meets regularly to examine how to live well — not just to succeed.
Creating a philosophical community of practice
- Lifestyle Design With Friends
Lifestyle design is the deliberate act of deciding what you want your daily life to look and feel like — then building backward from that vision to structure work, time, and location accordingly. Tim Ferriss popularized the framework; many of its tactics (mini-retirements, geographic arbitrage, outsourcing) are anecdotal or practitioner-reported rather than studied, but the underlying principle of deliberate design over passive default is well supported by goal-setting and autonomy research.
- The Good Life Lessons From The Harvard Study On A Budget
The Harvard Study of Adult Development — the longest longitudinal study of adult life, directed today by Robert Waldinger — found that the strongest predictor of long-term health and happiness is the quality of our relationships, not wealth or fame. It is real, decades-long research, but it is observational: it shows relationships and wellbeing move together, which is strong but not proof of pure cause.
- Designing Your Life On A Budget
Spend extravagantly on your priorities and ruthlessly eliminate the rest.
Cut costs mercilessly on things you don’t value
- Designing Your Life With Friends
Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ Stanford method treats your life like a design problem: you don’t "find" the one right answer, you prototype your way toward several good ones. The core moves — reframing stuck beliefs, drafting multiple Odyssey Plans, and running small prototypes — are practitioner tools adapted from design thinking, well-reasoned but not formally outcome-tested as a package.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.